Be very worried, Canada — Preston Manning is on the road again trying to unite the right.

Last time he was asked for his sage advice on this particular conjuring trick, Manning ended up surmising that, yes indeed, Danielle Smith and her bunch of oh-so-severely striving lackeys should dump their own Wildrose Party and join the seemingly perpetual political rulers of Alberta, those lovable, huggable PCs.

How did that go? Well, it went so badly, the stench of the stitch-up sickened so many Albertans that, come the election, they marked their X for fresh-faced candidates from the NDP, and the very next morning, “Hey, Presto,” we had a socialist government in Wild Rose territory. Oops.

At least Smith and her buddies deservedly paid a political price — when last heard from, she was yakking with the permanently disgruntled on talk radio. But not Manning, our self-appointed grandfather of conservatism. Unable or unwilling to learn a lesson from that horror show, and instead discover a love of gardening or garage sales, he took his reinvented unity show nationwide last weekend.

He snagged both current Wildrose boss Brian Jean and interim PC leader Ric McIver as guests to the Ottawa chinwag, along with a gaggle of federal MPs still doing the political Twister game by trying to distance themselves from Stephen Harper, without looking disloyal or ungrateful to the fellow who led them to a brass ring few could have reached on their own.

Well, if this latest unite-the-right gong show goes as well as the last piece of well-thought-out wisdom, then the moribund Communist Party of Canada should gather up its few remaining aging comrades and start plotting who gets which cabinet post.

Meanwhile, back in Edmonton, Rachel Notley probably carries a secret snapshot of Manning in her purse, kissing it for luck each morning and whispering heartfelt thanks. At least until the oil price fell below 40 bucks — now she’s wondering if this was a dastardly Manning plot to permanently drive a stake through the heart of provincial socialism.

Nah, don’t fret, Rachel. Like most of us getting-on-a-bit blokes, he just couldn’t help showing off. So he gave Danielle the good old thumbs-up and, yes indeed, off she went, wandering right off the plank and into the deep, dark waters of political infamy. Quite a splash she made.

See, that’s the problem with think-tanks and those earnest folk who inevitably populate them. They spend so much time thinking, they lose track of how ordinary people feel and how they react when the deep foreheads plot to manipulate them, as sheep, into the right voting pen.

This latest national foray follows a recent provincial push in which Manning sent a note to Alberta MPs asking their aid in uniting the Wildrose and Tory factions — a gentle nudge is how he termed it.

However, it may take more than a nudge, nudge, or even a wink, wink, as Monty Python’s Eric Idle once suggested, to push Jean and Ric into a public man hug.

Still, they agree on one thing, suggesting Preston bug out of their business.

“It needs to be bottoms up, and there’s no room for outside folks to commandeer this or steer it or direct it,” said Jean.

Yep, seems fair enough. Let the grassroots, who were so deceived by the previous Wildrose hara-kiri, decide if they want to rub nomination papers up against the Tories.

At least Jean has learned from history.

Sadly, Manning — an honest, decent and quite brilliant man, who cares deeply about Alberta and has worked all his life in its interests — seems to have lost faith in ordinary people. Yet, they’re the ones history has bestowed its favours upon. Think-tanks? Well, actually, not so much.

Preston, somehow people manage to get it right. They don’t need herding, because they are not sheep.

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